CRO Strike-Offs Are Rising: How to Keep Your Company Off the List

It is reported that the CRO has also signalled that it plans to resume prosecutions of directors and liquidators who fail to file, something it had largely paused in recent years.

In plain terms, the time to be proactive has come. If your company has an outstanding annual return, you are now on a list, and the list is being worked through.

What involuntary strike-off actually means

Strike-off is not a fine or a warning letter. It is the removal of your company from the register, and the consequences are severe:

• The company ceases to exist. Contracts, licences and insurance policies in the company's name can all be affected.
• Company assets pass to the State. Anything the company owns, bank balances, property, equipment, etc., becomes the property of the State upon dissolution.
• You lose limited liability. If you keep trading after strike-off, you are trading personally. Every debt the business runs up is your personal debt.
• Directors face disqualification. The Corporate Enforcement Authority can seek to disqualify the directors of a company struck off with outstanding liabilities.

Getting a company restored is possible, but it is a slow and expensive process. Within 12 months, restoration is an administrative process through the CRO, with fees and all outstanding returns to be filed. After 12 months, it requires a High Court application, which can cost thousands in legal fees.

Who is at risk

The strike-off process is triggered by missed filings, most commonly:

• A late or missing annual return (Form B1). This is the big one. Every Irish company must file an annual return, even if it has never traded.
• Ignoring a Revenue notice. If a company fails to deliver its statement of particulars (Form 11F) to Revenue, Revenue can notify the CRO and put the company on the strike-off path. In practice, this catches companies that have generally fallen behind with Revenue.
• No EEA-resident director without the Section 137 bond in place.
• The newer grounds. Since December 2024, the CRO can also strike off a company that fails to notify a change of registered office, has no company secretary recorded, or has not filed its beneficial ownership information with the RBO. The net is wider than it used to be.

Dormant and non-trading companies are heavily represented here. A lot of directors assume that a company that isn't trading has nothing to file. It does; every company must file every year, without exception.

A quick refresher on the annual return deadline

Your company has an Annual Return Date (ARD) and 56 days from that date to deliver everything to the CRO: the signed B1, the financial statements where required, and the fee. Your effective deadline is the earlier of:

• Your ARD plus 56 days
• Your financial year-end plus nine months (plus 56 days after this date)

Miss it by just one day and a €100 late penalty applies immediately, plus €3 for every subsequent day, capped at €1,200 per return. Late filing is also a strike against your audit exemption.

But the late fee is a small problem. The strike-off list is the real one.

How the strike-off process unfolds

It does not happen overnight, which means there is always a window to act:

1. The CRO writes to the company's registered office, warning of the intention to strike off.
2. If nothing is filed, a public notice is published in the CRO Gazette.
3. If there is still no response, the company is struck off and dissolved.

The danger is that the warning letter is ignored, or goes to an old registered office address or an old accountant's address, etc. Many directors first learn their company was struck off when a bank account is frozen or a customer's due diligence check fails.

What to do right now

If your returns are up to date, check your ARD and put the 56-day deadline in your calendar. Check your company deadlines here.

If you have an outstanding annual return: file it now, before the warning letter becomes a Gazette notice. Late fees sting, but a business recovers from them; a struck-off company is a much bigger problem.

If your company is dormant and you no longer need it, don't just let it be struck off. A voluntary strike-off is a clean, controlled exit that protects you from disqualification proceedings. We can handle the whole process.

Talk to us

We file annual returns for companies across Ireland every week, and we track every client's ARD, so deadlines are never a surprise. If you're not sure where your company stands, get in touch at info@incorpro.ie or 090 661 6893, and we will check the register for you - it takes us five minutes, and it could save you a struck-off company.

Sources

• Law Society Gazette (2026) CRO set to step up enforcement action, April. Available at: https://www.lawsociety.ie/gazette/top-stories/2026/april/cro-set-to-step-up-enforcement-action--alg/ (accessed 5 June 2026).
• Companies Registration Office (2026) Annual Return Date. Available at: https://cro.ie/annual-return/annual-return-date/ (accessed 5 June 2026).
• Companies Registration Office (2026) Involuntary Strike-Off. Available at: https://cro.ie/termination-restoration/company/involuntary-strike-off/ (accessed 5 June 2026).
• Companies Registration Office (2026) Company Fees. Available at: https://cro.ie/publications/fees/company/ (accessed 5 June 2026).
• Companies Act 2014, section 726 (as amended). Available at: https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/2014/act/38/section/726/revised/en/html (accessed 5 June 2026).
• Whitney Moore (2025) New Involuntary Strike-Off Powers, 19 September. Available at: https://whitneymoore.ie/2025/09/19/new-involuntary-strike-off-powers/ (accessed 5 June 2026).